Kitten Mittens

So I've been a bit sporadic about updating the blog recently. That's because we got a new kitten!!! Meet Cupcake, a former stray we adopted from the Friends of Feral Felines in Portland. She's about four months old, has double paws (polydactyly), is a very light orange and sooooo cute! For those who are unfamiliar with polydactyly, this means that she has several extra toes (hers are all on her front paws, but you can have them on back paws as well), making it look almost like she has a thumb!


We named her Cupcake (or CC for short) after one of my favorite local designers when I lived in Boston: Johnny Cupcake. This is because her double paws look a bit like oven mitts, which are used in several of Johnny Cupcake's designs.

This has also led to another nickname for her: Kitten Mitten!

The other cats, Rosy and Chester, aren't best friends with her yet, but they do play around, sniff her, and generally tolerate her presence. We've eased the transition by giving them lots of treats, petting, and a new and improved (and a lot bigger) scratching post. This one has four levels for cats to enjoy! Pillars at the bottom, a hidey-hole on the 2nd (or 1st floor, if you're European), a little dougnut-shaped (with a pillar in the middle) landing (kitten fits on this level perfectly),

and lastly the top. The top is a favorite amongst all of the cats, but Chester fits inside it perfectly. He didn't really use our old one as much because he was too big and had to sleep with his legs hanging out all over. Now he can curl up and rule over his kingdom with a view of everything!

Our benevolent ruler, Chester Copperpot.

So our fam has increased in size to five (including my husband and me) and we couldn't be happier, even if it's kept me from being as productive with my crafting. Now that everyone's gotten used to each other, I'm sure I'll be able to find the time! :)

Our happy feline household: Chester Copperpot on top, Rosalita on the old post in back, and Cupcake crawling out of the hidey-hole.

Stuff Portland Mainers Like! - Coexist Bumper Stickers

I'm a relatively new transplant to Portland, Maine. I've lived for several years each in Southern NH, Boston (Massachusetts), and briefly (less than a year or two) in Central New York (the state, not the city), Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Minot (North Dakota) and the panhandle area of Florida. Sheesh. That's a lotta places in the US. No west coast though. Hmmm.

But in any case, I moved to Portland (again Maine, not Oregon) a few months ago, and since then I've noticed a few things that seem unique to the area. Little quirks and habits of Portland Mainers (and perhaps Mainers in general, though I haven't traveled around the state enough to know) that I find funny, bizarre, or just darn wonderful!

So here's "Stuff Portland Mainers Like" #1! Coexist bumper stickers.


That's right. Those Coexist bumper stickers where the letters are all made up of different symbols: Islam, Peace, Male/Female, Judaism, Pagan and Bah'ai, Taoism, and Christianity.


They come from Peacemonger.org, a company in California, just in case you were wondering. Now I know that some people find these stickers smug and obnoxious ("Yeah, it's easy enough to have a bumper sticker that says 'coexist,' but that's not gonna help anyone in the REAL WORLD!") but now I kinda think that they're a nice way to show that you respect other people's beliefs. A way of saying, "you can be you, and I can be me, and that's cool."


I also prefer the Muppets' version of the "Coexist" thinking, which is "Why can't we be friends?"

I noticed this variation on an electrician's truck recently. Apparently this version was special ordered by the Portland, Maine Habitat for Humanity (I guess they noticed Portlanders love of Coexist stickers too) for their Interfaith House project, bringing people of different faiths together to build a green (green as in environmentally efficient, not the color) building. How cool is that? It's a really nice introduction to the kind people of Portland, Maine!